Home At Last!

We are finally at home! We spent much of yesterday with the nurses passing our "final exam": spouting back medications, doses, frequency; reviewing our "red flags" and if you can believe it, proving to the nurses we knew how to use a scale properly. I must say leaving the hospital was a bit anti-climatic. We've worked with so many doctors and nurses, we almost expected the type of send-of you see when a ship leaves port. But no, just one nurse bringing in the paperwork and "okay, you're done" - not even a walk to the car.  But we were free!
Once home we had to set up our little, medical center in our bedroom. We have an oxomiter to measure his heart rate and oxygen saturation once a day, (or more until we become less paranoid.)  We have a dresser top full of medicine and syringes for his twice a day medications. Also stationed next to his pack-n-play is his tower that holds his feeding pouch and pump which pushes his milk through his feeding tube.

Our first night here at home was ROUGH.  Declan has to be fed every three hours, and it takes about an hour to do it.  We first feed as much as we can to him via bottle (usually less than an ounce) and the rest is given through the feeding tube. So the night went something like this: 9pm to 10pm feed. 10 to 11 get everything ready for the next day. Overslept the 12am feeding and woke up at 12:30am. Fed him until a little after 1am.  Slept until about 3:30. (This feeding we do entirely via tube, so doesn't take too long, other than having to get up and turn off the pump and flush his line.) Slept from just before 4am until just after 6am to start feeding again.  The difficulty is that it really takes both of us right now for the feeds because we have to do a couple of tube placement tests and set up the feeding pump while the other person tries to get the poor sleepy guy to take as much food as he can via bottle. I'm sure we'll get used to it, but it is an exhausting process.  Giving the meds is another process in of itself. Luckily that is only twice a day.

We were pretty frustrated when we woke up this morning. The amount of formula Declan normally takes via bottle had been much less since we came home, we weren't "on the dot" for his feeding schedule, and he threw up some of his meds last night so we had to call the doctor at 11pm to modify things a bit. Plus we were running late this morning bringing Declan to his doctor appointment at 8am in the down-pouring rain.  Our doctor was very good at helping us step back and look at the big picture. He gained weight and is now above his birth weight, and his bottle feeds will pick up. Eventually we will learn not to stress the little things.  We are getting used to the lack of security blanket the hospital provides and are very grateful for grandma and grandpa's help. We couldn't do it alone. We are grateful for everybody's help!